List Page Text Export

NetForum provides Export options that allow you to export raw data from a List page into a specific format.

Usage

To Export Data From the List Page:

  1. On the List page, click the Export icon on the List Page Action Links in the upper right hand corner.
  2. The Export submenu will display.
  3. On the Export submenu, select your desired format for exported the data.

NEW Feature

When exporting to text from a List page, additional formatting options have been added to make the process more flexible.

To Export to Text:

  1. Click the Export icon on the List Page Action Links in the upper right corner.
  2. Select the Export to Text File link. (If you have pop up blocker on, hold down the Ctrl key while clicking.)
  1. The Export to Text File page will display.
  2. Select the Delimiter.
    • comma separated (default)
    • Other and enter the character in the text box.
  3. Select the Seperator.
    • double quotes (default)
    • Other and enter the character in the text box.
  4. Select or Clear the Exclude GUIDs check box. (If the lists you have selected will be distributed or used for merging into documents, do NOT select the Exclude GUIDs check box.)
  5. Click Export.
  1. A page will open with your text file.
    • The first row contains header information.
    • The data will be formatted according to the options you selected.

Note: This separator is used for text data. If you import the data in Excel or other programs, text fields that contain the delimiter (that is, a comma) will not be parsed into multiple fields. For example, if your organization is named "My Company, LLC" and you exported a text file into Excel, when Excel organized the data into fields, it would separate the name into two fields because of the comma in the name. However, with the separator, the data would read "My Company, LLC" which Excel would recognize as a single field.

Additional Information

Troubleshooting

Q. I am trying to export, but it does not work. I restored all browser defaults then restarted IE, but I still get the window to pop up just for a second then it disappears and nothing happens.

A. Be sure you do not have a Pop up Blocker interfering with an export. If you have IE, you can press the Ctrl button and then the export link to suppress the pop up, or you can enable pop ups for that site (which is the best long term solution).

I also had to modify my IE Internet Options. On the Security tab I had to add my site in the Local Intranet section. This was initially confusing because my pop-up blocker was not turned on and my site was a trusted site with the pop-up blocker disabled, yet my export window was still getting blocked. IE wanted to see the site in the Local Intranet section. See Internet Explorer Settings for more.

Another area to look at if the above solution does not resolve the pop-up window issue is IE's 7.0 setting for 'Automatic prompting for file downloads' which is set to disable by default. To change this follow the steps below:

  1. From the Internet Options window click the Security tab.
  2. Click the Trusted Sites icon and then the Custom Settings button.
  3. Scroll down until you see the setting for Automatic prompting for file downloads under the Download section of the Security Setting - Trusted Site Zone window.
  4. Click Enable.
  5. Click the OK button to save the changes and click OK again on to exit the Internet Options window.

As an alternative to the setting above, you can add the URL of the page you are trying to open in the local intranet set within IE 7.0 security tab.

  1. From the Internet Options window click the Security tab.
  2. Click the Local Intranet icon and then the Sites button.
  3. Next, click the Advanced button.
  4. Click Add to add the website to the zone.
  5. Click the Close button to exit the window.
  6. Click the OK button to save the changes and click OK again on to exit the Internet Options window.

Excel Formatting

Excel will sometimes format data unpredictably. One common issue is that Excel misreads zip codes and "thinks" these are numbers, which can result in leading zeros being dropped, e.g. "08520" goes to "8520". Refer to the Editing CSV in Excel topic for tips to solve this.

To solve this, you must change the formatting on your Excel spreadsheet. See the following link for tips: